Thursday, June 21, 2012

Robert and I had a wonderful time celebrating our 25th anniversary with friends last night! I loved using all of my pretty silver pieces (many of which were wedding gifts), and I was very happy with how my food turned out. A couple of the recipes are elsewhere on my blog. I'm glad to share any others.

Dining Room table

Close-up of centerpiece flowers. These were stunning and they smelled so good!

Breakfast Room Table set up for drinks

I served Cocktail Beef Wellingtons with Bernaise Sauce, Stilton Tart with Cranberry Chutney, Aegean Olives, Maple Salmon Bites, Cajun Shrimp, Pancetta Medallions with Goat Cheese and Pear. I was happy with how everything turned out, and people ate a lot

Robert and me with my cousin Ted and his wife Susan. They have also been married 25 years this summer. Notice the silver bracelet on my right arm that was my anniversary present from Robert. It's beautiful and was a total surprise!

Toasting 25 wonderful years!

Cutting our silver anniversary cake (it was delicious - I did not make this!)

Vivian surprised us and came downstairs. She usually shuns crowds, but she was so sweet - didn't even try to throw anything at anyone!

Robert and me with our sweet Vivian

Robert with his sisters and brother

What a treat to be able to celebrate with friends and family!

A sweet and talented friend made this beautiful shadow box for us. The white heart is our wedding date, the red hearts our children's birthdays and the silver heart our 25th anniversary date. The other hearts contain passages from an old book with words pertinent to our life. What a wonderful gift!

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

25 years ago today Robert and I were married! What a lucky girl I am to have married such a kind man, whose company I enjoy so much and whom I love even more now than I did a quarter of a century ago!

We have friends from our wedding party and couples we have been close to over the years coming over tonight to celebrate with us. In October Robert and I are taking a trip to Rome and the Amalfi Coast in Italy to commemorate this special anniversary.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

I receive a lot of feedback from readers who have children with special needs so I thought I'd share a little about our preparations for Vivian's 18th birthday, which is this Friday.

When a child turns 18 in America, he or she becomes a legal adult. I remember when Will turned 18, he logged on the computer that morning and registered to vote and signed up for the selective service draft. Shortly after that, Will had his tonsils out, and the hospital required him to sign all paperwork related to his surgery and care.

For a child like Vivian who is not capable of making important decisions on her own, steps must be taken to ensure that she remains under someone else's care. In Texas this is called guardianship.

We started working on Vivian's guardianship proceedings back in December (I had set an alert on my calendar years ago, when 18 seemed a long ways away!). The process is quite involved, as well it should be because significant rights are being taken away from her (the right to vote, drive, make decisions on where to live, medical care, etc.). We engaged an attorney who specialized in family law and came recommended from other families with children in class with Vivian. Robert and I had to fill out a lot of paperwork, and there was an extensive form for one of Vivian's doctors to complete.

In March a county constable served Vivian with court papers (she had no clue what that was about, but the papers had to be given directly to Vivian). A month or so ago, an investigator from the court came to our house to interview Vivian. He had told me the meeting could last as long as an hour, but it took him less than 5 minutes to assess that Vivian indeed was in need of a guardian! I had a hard time convincing Vivian to stay downstairs while the man attempted to ask her how old she was (she tried to kick the man and then asked to go to timeout in her room so she could watch Dumbo). We are still waiting to hear from the attorney ad litem, who will represent Vivian's interests on behalf of the state. After he meets her, we will have a hearing in court and our guardianship of Vivian will be established. Going forward, we will have a yearly evaluation where we complete paperwork and the court checks to be certain we are providing an appropriate home for Vivian (including confirming that we have working fire extinguishers in our house!).

This is one time that I'm tremendously thankful that Vivian is not higher functioning; I can't imagine how difficult it would be to make such a determination if the child were borderline or had an idea of what was going on. As it is, Vivian continues along in her happy little world, oblivious that she even has a birthday this week, much less a significant one in the eyes of the rest of the world.

Pictured above, starting in upper left and moving clockwise:

Married for 27 years to Robert, three kids: Will (23), Vivian (20) and Dots (17) ~~~~
Majored in mathematics at SMU, taught elementary school for six years before Will was born, currently tutoring math ~~~~
Things I enjoy: playing duplicate bridge, working NY Times crossword puzzles, reading good books, entertaining, visiting with friends, planning trips, traveling, playing board games, spending time with family, cooking, keeping up with old friends ~~~ happy to correspond with other parents about raising a child with special needs

Note about Pictures

I unintentionally contaminated all of the pictures on my blog when I changed my privacy settings on Flickr. I am working backwards to correct them all, but it is quite a tedious procedure! If you encounter a post with error messages from Flickr where the pictures should be, then I haven't gotten to that post yet. Please let me know and I will update it immediately. Thanks for your patience!